Residents in Beijing are rounded up in an all-day operation and put in quarantine as the city goes back into lockdown due to an ‘extremely severe’ fresh Covid-19 cluster blamed on European salmon.
Video shows officials in protective suits forcing people to line up amid fears another wave of coronavirus outbreak is about to hit the nation.
Jennifer Zeng, an activist who shared the video, says that seven hotels are being used as quarantine sites, with residents rounded up after newspapers reported that the coronavirus was discovered on chopping boards used for importing European salmon at Xinfadi market.
The news prompted supermarkets to remove the fish from their shelves.
Beijing has recently reported 27 new infections from the Xinfadi market cluster and the number of cases has jumped after mass testing. However, the Chinese Centre for Disease says there is no evidence to suggest contaminated salmon played a role in the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities tested tens of thousands of residents and locked down around 30 communities. People who are at most risk of having come in contact with coronavirus were banned from leaving Beijing.
All restaurants, markets, offices, and canteens have been instructed to carry out disinfection and deep clean.
Public facilities such as parks, museums, and galleries can only operate at 30 percent of its full capacity. Entertainment venues and indoor sports were forced to closed while other cities warned they would put arrivals from Beijing into quarantine.
WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said: “A cluster like this is a concern and it needs to be investigated and controlled – and that is exactly what the Chinese authorities are doing.”
Virologist Yang believes that the fresh outbreak could be more infectious due to the number of cases in such a short period of time.
Yang also believes that if the virus ‘matches the type of virus sampled in the Xinfadi market and from Europe,’ then it was likely that the disease had been ‘imported’ into China by people or food from Europe.
Regin Jacobsen, the CEO of Oslo-listed salmon supplier Bakkafrost, told Reuters: “We can’t send any salmon to China now, the market is closed.”
Stein Martinsen, head of sales and marketing at Norway Royal Salmon, also said: “We have stopped all sales to China and are waiting for the situation to be clarified.”
Keith Neal, a professor at Britain’s University of Nottingham, said any link to salmon was likely caused by cross-contamination. “Markets can be crowded places, so like in Wuhan, (they) help fuel spread,” he said, according to Channel News Asia.
He also added that finding a link to Europe was not a surprise due to the global spread of the virus. “China gave the world this virus and it was always very likely to give it back to them. Finding a strain prevalent in Europe probably reflects people returning to China after travelling to Europe,” he added.
Both Norway Royal Salmon and Bakkafrost said employees none of their employees had tested positive for the virus.
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Replaced!